Thinking about how he'd just run all over the place asking people where the Chess Club was, Toru Hasegawa wanted to slap himself across the face.
Why had he been so eager to help?
He'd thought Sakayanagi Arisu was simply interested in chess and wanted to join the school's Chess Club.
He hadn't expected her to say she was going to challenge them!
That wasn't exactly what she'd said, but that was how it had sounded to Toru Hasegawa.
Since there was no going back now, and he'd already asked around, Toru Hasegawa had no choice but to knock on the door for Sakayanagi Arisu.
He seriously wondered if she was some rich family's young lady. She was unbelievably good at ordering people around!
Chess didn't seem like something a poor family's child would learn, either.
But... did rich people attend this school too?
Toru Hasegawa had assumed most of the students here would be as dirt-poor as he was, but now it seemed that wasn't the case.
Neither Horikita nor Sakayanagi Arisu seemed like the kind of girls who'd come from a poor family.
"Who is it?"
The clubroom door opened from the inside, revealing a boy with a crew cut. Other voices came from within, so it seemed the club was in the middle of an activity.
Toru Hasegawa silently shifted a step to the left, making room for the other boy to see Sakayanagi Arisu.
"If you're a first-year looking to join, come back tomorrow. We're not accepting new members today."
The other boy had the same idea Toru Hasegawa had at first. He thought Sakayanagi Arisu wanted to join the Chess Club.
"No, I'm not here to join." Sakayanagi Arisu gave a gentle shake of her head, the corners of her mouth lifting slightly. "I'm here to challenge you."
"Nani?"
He hadn't expected the petite girl standing before him to make such a bold claim.
Sure, she was cute, but she shouldn't think that meant her seniors would go easy on her. Cute or not, she'd still get beaten.
"Did I hear that right? You're here to challenge us?"
Hearing the commotion at the door, another senior stood and walked over. The boy with the crew cut stepped aside.
He looked down into Sakayanagi Arisu's eyes, but she showed not the slightest hint of fear. They held each other's gaze for several seconds.
"Interesting." He stepped aside to let them in, then asked Toru Hasegawa, "Are you here to challenge us too?"
"No, I'm just an errand boy."
Toru Hasegawa replied with a blank expression.
Thinking about what he'd done earlier, he really couldn't find it in himself to laugh.
The afternoon flew by in the blink of an eye.
Toru Hasegawa stared at Sakayanagi Arisu in shock. Just moments ago, he'd watched her personal account balance rise from 400,000 points to 800,000!
And personal points could actually be used as stakes?
From the very start, Sakayanagi Arisu had proposed betting 100,000 personal points on each match. The other party had only seemed surprised that she was going all in, not that personal points could be used that way. Toru Hasegawa couldn't help feeling conflicted.
She understood the hidden rules behind this school more thoroughly than he did, and had quickly figured out how to use her strengths to profit. He'd only been thinking about exploring things slowly...
"Thank you for your time this afternoon."
Sakayanagi Arisu politely said this to the senior, who wore a dazed expression, and then tried to get up from the floor.
However, she seemed to have forgotten how long she'd been sitting, or perhaps she hadn't yet come down from the intensity of the chess match. As she stood, her legs gave way, and she stumbled toward the floor.
"Ah—!"
After a brief cry, the expected pain never came. Sakayanagi Arisu relaxed, lowered the defensive posture she'd instinctively taken, and slowly opened her eyes.
"How long are you planning to stay in my arms?"
Toru Hasegawa said helplessly. He hadn't expected Sakayanagi Arisu to make such a basic mistake.
He'd anticipated it, but hadn't had time to warn her before it happened.
So he'd darted forward and caught her, keeping her from falling.
Although his hand had landed somewhere a little inappropriate, he felt nothing at all. Nobody would be happy about touching a flat chest, after all.
Now that he'd experienced it for himself, Alice really was flat-chested—not the kind of girl who looked slim with her clothes on but had curves underneath.
"...Pick up my cane for me."
"Oh, right..."
He hurriedly handed the cane to the girl's right hand. Sakayanagi Arisu took a deep breath to calm herself.
The dizziness in her head gradually faded, and her vision cleared. She used her cane to steady herself as she stood.
"Let's go."
The seniors watched the two of them leave, seemingly still reeling from the blow they'd suffered at the hands of a first-year.
"I'm such an idiot. I really am."
The boy who'd played Sakayanagi Arisu in the final match murmured to himself. As the Chess Club president, he'd fallen into the trap she'd set. He'd already seen in the first two games that she was holding back, but he'd thought his own skill would be enough to handle her. He hadn't expected...
"I should've realized that if she was confident enough to keep going all in against us, she wasn't just reckless. Sigh..."
"President... It's okay. Just think of it as paying for a lesson..."
A senior quickly pulled himself together and offered some comfort.
The April breeze blew freely outside the window, and their spirits swayed along with it.
"This year's first-years are something else..."
"I didn't expect Classmate Sakayanagi to be so good at chess. You even beat the president. And you're so mean—you only ever played just a little better than your opponents."
Toru Hasegawa wanted to use that afternoon's events as a starting point to discuss the true nature of this school with her, but all he got in response was silence.
"...If you managed to react in time to catch me, you must have anticipated that I'd fall."
After a long while, Sakayanagi Arisu finally spoke. But instead of talking about the points she'd won that afternoon, she brought up the fall that had just happened.
"I was going to warn you, but it was already too late."
Toru Hasegawa answered honestly.
Sakayanagi Arisu carefully studied his expression as he spoke.
After a long pause, she gently tapped the ground twice with her cane.
"You weren't lying this time."
So she'd seen through his lie at lunchtime?
Toru Hasegawa thought it didn't matter. Sakayanagi Arisu didn't seem like she intended to hold him accountable.
Just then, she took her phone out from beneath her skirt with her left hand and tapped the screen a few times. A moment later, Toru Hasegawa's phone buzzed.
"Open it and take a look," she urged.
Toru Hasegawa opened his phone and saw a message saying she'd transferred 100,000 personal points to him.
She'd already made three transfers that afternoon, so it was only natural that she'd gotten so quick at it.
He pretended to be confused. "What's this...?"
"Your payment for this afternoon. Not only for helping me find the Chess Club, but also for helping make up the difference when I didn't have enough points for the bet."
Sakayanagi Arisu didn't mention her fall at all. She simply said that.
She'd decided that using points to buy his cooperation was probably a workable strategy.
"Oh, okay..."
Toru Hasegawa obediently nodded. He'd be a fool to turn down money. After accompanying her around all afternoon, he suddenly felt it had been worth it!
When Sakayanagi Arisu saw the notification that he'd accepted the transfer, she relaxed almost imperceptibly, then continued:
"Would you mind having dinner with me? Of course, it's my treat."
She might have been flat-chested, but she was also a rich woman now.
Toru Hasegawa gladly accepted her invitation. He'd be a fool to pass up a free meal.
The two of them had dinner together in the Student Cafeteria. Just like at lunchtime, Toru Hasegawa ate two meals.
One was the free Mountain Vegetable Set Meal, and the other was a meal Sakayanagi Arisu treated him to—not too expensive, but not cheap, either.
Unlike at lunchtime, Sakayanagi Arisu didn't choose the Mountain Vegetable Set Meal. Instead, she picked the cheapest ordinary meal.
Even so, its taste and portion size were in a league the Mountain Vegetable Set Meal couldn't hope to compete with.
After dinner, the elevator doors opened on the third floor of the dormitory, and Toru Hasegawa was finally free again.
He didn't think Sakayanagi Arisu would fall for him just because of what had happened that day. After all, her affection rating had only reached 40 by the end.
Going from 10 to 40 in one day was still pretty good.
With that thought, Toru Hasegawa returned to his dorm room, took a comfortable shower to wash off the grime from a day of activity, then lay down on his bed and checked his phone to see what everyone was talking about in the class group chat.
But no matter how much he looked, the conversation was mostly about the dreamlike campus life at this school.
After a while, Toru Hasegawa got bored, left the chat app, watched videos for a bit, and then drifted off to sleep.
He'd gotten up early to catch the bus, attended an utterly boring entrance ceremony, and then spent the afternoon as unpaid labor... He was tired.
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